Always great to work with Smoke Creatives on Here, the Shelter supporter mag.

They sent me to one of Shelter’s furniture shops in Birmingham. I was delighted to discover that six members of the same family – over three generations – work and volunteer in the shop, reflecting the dedication that Shelter inspires.

I’ve recently returned from the Greek/ Macedonian border, where I was documenting the refugee and migrant crisis.

I was travelling with a delegation of senior UK church leaders, part of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

What I will always remember from the trip was the woman in the centre of this picture, Diana.

Amid the squalor and the rubbish, this neat and self-composed young woman stood out.

With her Mango handbag and carton of juice, she looked like she was going shopping, instead of enduring a long, dangerous and uncertain journey across an unwelcoming Europe.

Diana is a lawyer. She told me that she was traveling to Germany with her mother Majida because their house in Damascus had been destroyed and they had nowhere to live.

They were desperate, but very dignified. I think my questions irritated her; I sensed did not want to be treated with pity, or curiosity. She did not want to dwell on her circumstances. She wasn’t interested in talking to me.

She just wanted to get the journey finished so she could continue with her life.

Lots of updates due……latest piece for Waterfront, the Canal & River Trust mag, was a lovely day spent with Birmingham photographer Andrew Jackson asking the good people of the Midlands why they love their canals.

During my time covering the riots of 2011 for the Guardian’s Reading the Riots project, I was tasked with interviewing defence lawyers for their views about the harsh sentences handed out to rioters.

All of them expressed concern about the length and manner in which sentences were handed out; the fact bail was routinely refused; and that magistrates seemed to be playing to the press gallery, making examples of individual defendants to score political points.

There were high profile critics of sentences at the time. Leading criminal barrister John Cooper QC said they were ‘over the top’, while former chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Paul Mendelle QC, said sentences were too long and harsh.

Yet politicians justified them, saying that the circumstances were extraordinary – and that rioters needed to ‘understand the consequences’ of their actions.

A recent report from Manchester University, however, confirms the view of those I interviewed at the time as well as critics of the courts’ approach.

By analysing data, they have shown that the sentences were ‘excessive and arbitrary’ – and say the justice system acted like ‘Judge Dredd’

My report for the Big issue in the North is below. Read a version for Equal Times here.

A belated few images from a fascinating week spent in Jordan in November last year documenting the British Council’s Active Citizens programme.

We visited some great projects; Jordan’s Deaf Hub, where the country’s neglected deaf population are finally getting the support and training they deserve to be fully integrated members of society.

The Jordanian National Commission for Women are training, educating and supporting young girls in rural areas to claim their rights and access employment.

And the young people of the Princess Basma Youth Resource Centre are producing their own photography and media to challenge those who abuse power, scrutinise those in authority, and raise awareness about issues that affect young people.

A fascinating debate – as Welsh slowly declines as a community language, should Welsh speakers be given preferential treatment on housing waiting lists? And should private developments be halted if they are unaffordable for locals?

The Big Issue in the North asked me to write a supplement, in partnership with the international charity ActionAid, to publicise their work tackling child poverty and encourage people to become child sponsors.

I wrote and sourced all the articles and case studies, and worked with a designer to create an engaging format for the information.

The supplement was inserted in all editions of the Big Issue nationally.

In 2010, I was commissioned by the Lancashire Global Education Centre to edit and write their Global Dimensions magazine, featuring stories of how schools can include international issues and learning in their teaching.

The magazine was used as a resource for schools throughout the North West.

The report focuses on the little known buy-as-you-rent sector, whose shops sell white goods and appliances with interest rates of almost 70 per cent.

They sector is increasingly dominating some of poorest high streets in the UK.

Almost 80 per cent of BrightHouse’s 271 shops are in the top 30 per cent most deprived areas of the UK.

People use them because the weekly repayments are so low – a washing machine from BrightHouse costs just £6 a week for 156 weeks.

But at a final cost of £936, this hardly represents a bargain.

The report outlines is what the sector needs to do to change – offer lower interest rates, better rates for better payers, transparent costings, free debt advice, no default charges, and share credit data – so that their customers can eventually get themselves out of debt and wean themselves back on to normal credit.

The Observer covered the report well here, using much of my research in an infographic.

The project used my photography, audio and words, and I worked with a team of web and graphic designers.

The project documented the UK’s ‘Good Society’; the thousands of people who are committed to ensure that those on the margins are included, cared for and supported.

A copy of the full report is here, while the toolkit is available here.

Working with a researcher, I travelled to seven very different UK destinations – Cornwall, Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Belfast, Newcastle and Swansea – to investigate the views of those working at a local level.

All are working to tackle different social issues; be it homelessness, worklessness, conflict, mental health problems, religious and ethnic tensions, poverty, lack of access to services, old age or merely loneliness.

All too often, when I’ve interviewed ex-offenders, drug addicts and rough sleepers, they seem to be suffering as much from society’s inability to listen to their needs as they do from the consequences of their own actions.

So I was excited to learn more about a project – Inspiring Change Manchester – that aims to put those it helps at the heart of what it does.

At Inspiring Change Manchester, ex-service users act as peer mentors; interview staff; advise on service design; and will eventually become employees themselves.

The project is part of a £112 million national programme to change the way society thinks about how it treats its most vulnerable and chaotic members.

By including them in decisions made about their lives, it is hoped services will not only become more practically effective – but will also empower clients to really change.

The piece is due to appear in the next edition of Here, Shelter’s supporter magazine.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a project to train a group of people, all on benefits, to speak out against the stigma of poverty.

The idea behind the course, commissioned by Church Action on Poverty and Oxfam, was to create a network of spokespeople who could talk about the reality of life lived at the sharp end of welfare reform.

These spokespeople would powerfully challenge the current scrounger/ skiver narrative.

As well as running six workshops with the group, I set up a website, www.stigmastories.com, to tell the stories of individual members.

I organised an event to introduce them to the community, which included a panel debate to discuss some of the issues they raised.

In January I visited Colombo, Sri Lanka, to photograph and write about the work of the British Council’s Active Citizens programme – with whom I have previously visited Sudan, Serbia and the Outer Hebrides.